


crescendo of moments

by deathsweetqueen



Series: Iron Husbands Bingo 2019 [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Female Tony Stark, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Past Child Abuse, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 20:29:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19236535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: The first time Toni touches her belly and feels something kick underneath her hand, she smiles and considers it a victory won.She goes to the doctor just to be sure.“Congratulations, Ms Stark,” the doctor says, pleasantly. “You’re pregnant.”Toni absolutely does not pump her fist in the car.Written for the "pregnancy" square for the Iron Husbands Bingo 2019 and the "no powers au" square of the Marvel Rare Pair Bingo 2019





	crescendo of moments

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Iron Husbands Bingo and Marvel Rare Pair Bingo 2019.

The first time Toni touches her belly and feels something kick underneath her hand, she smiles and considers it a victory won.

She goes to the doctor just to be sure.

“Congratulations, Ms Stark,” the doctor says, pleasantly. “You’re pregnant.”

Toni absolutely does not pump her fist in the car.

Rhodey’s fixing the other car when she gets home. In one hand is the gender-neutral _it’s a baby_ balloon that she waves in his face, bright and proud.

It takes a while for Rhodey to get it, but when he does, his eyes go enormous and he heaves her up into his arms, with a laugh.

“I love you. Thank you,” he says, when he sets her back down, and she throws her arms around him, kissing him hard and deep and messy.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” she sighs. “Now,” she reaches down to grope his arse (she loves his arse). “Let’s go inside and celebrate.”

“God, yes,” Rhodey moans and lifts her up again, so that she can wrap her legs around his waist for leverage.

* * *

She tells Ana and Jarvis first – she loves them best, after all.

Ana screams into the phone for a solid minute before Jarvis pulls her from the phone, calling out his most fond congratulations, in that firm, gentle voice of his that had lulled her to sleep many a night as a child.

“Edward James,” she says, suddenly, licking her dry mouth. “We’re gonna name him Edward, if it’s a boy, of course. Margaret Marianna, if it’s a girl.”

“Ah,” she hears the smile in his voice. “Well, you have made an old man very happy this day, Miss Antonia.”

Toni grins, laughing herself to tears. “Well, who else would I have named him after? Who else would I want him to be the most like?” she asks, softly.

There’s silence from the phone, before Ana snatches it for herself.

“Ignore him,” she says, sweetly. “He’s crying. You made him cry, _lelkem_. Well done.”

Toni shakes her head. “You are seriously sadistic,” she retorts, thickly.

“When will you come here?” Ana demands, without missing a beat. “You need to eat well, now that there’s a little human inside you. I don’t trust you to take care of yourself properly.”

Anyone else, she might have smacked their stupid face – but Ana, Ana can say as she pleases to Toni, she’s earned that with all the love she was so eager and easy to give away to a girl that should have, by all rights, meant nothing to her beyond a pay check.

“Rhodey’s here,” she points out. “He takes care of me.”

“He does,” Ana doesn’t hesitate to agree. “But he won’t always be there the next nine months,” she points out, gently. “And you’ll need something comfortable. Come home for some time, won’t you, _lelkem_? I’ll make you _sólet_ , the way you like.”

Her voice is cajoling, like how she used to drag Toni out from her room and her robots to go to her lessons with the tutor her father had engaged, until she knew more than he did and it ended up being a waste of money that Howard had raged over anyway.

“Maybe later on,” she hedges, hating to lie but equally loath to leave Rhodey.

“Lovely,” Ana cheers. “Alright, make sure you’re eating properly, and make sure you get plenty of rest. No more late-night vigils in your garage.”

Toni rolls her eyes. “Ana, would you quit being such a yenta? I can take care of myself.”

Ana sniffs. “I’ll believe that when I see it. I’m putting the phone down now.” Her voice gentles. “You might want to go to temple a little more often now, my love.”

Toni flattens a palm over her stomach and thinks of all the babies her mother had bled out – yes, she will go to temple more often now.

“I will,” Toni murmurs.

“And no more damn cheeseburgers!”

“Fine!”

Toni slams the phone down.

Rhodey stares at her. “You have the strangest relationship with her, I swear.”

Toni shrugs. “It works for us.”

* * *

In all honesty, she didn’t want to tell her parents.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to, that she bears some great hatred against her mother (she hasn’t quite decided about her father), but she fears their reaction, their hunger, when she’s denied them, when she’s happy and safe in her little house with her kind husband and her mechanic’s garage, and she doesn’t have to be Antonia Stark, daughter of millionaire magnate, Howard Stark, heir to a still growing kingdom (in a different world, she would have made it an empire, _her_ empire, but that world isn’t this one).

She’s quite happy in this world.

But Maria reacts quite cheerfully to the news, and begs her to come home, to which she reacts vaguely and non-committedly, because the prospect of facing Howard with her belly swelling like this, well, there are more pleasant things in the world, definitely.

Howard says nothing to the news.

Toni wasn’t expecting anything different.

* * *

Roberta and Jeanette react with screaming.

Jeanette demands to be the baby’s godmother, demands that the baby be named after her, boy or girl, and demands that she comes and stay with them until she’s had the baby.

Frankly, Rhodey’s pissed that no one seems to think that he’s capable of taking care of her at all.

Frankly, Toni’s pissed that no one seems to think that she can take care of herself.

“Come on, white girl,” Jeanette cajoles, even though Toni has insisted time and time again that she’s not white at all and Jeanette still jokes that she’ll always be whiter than she is. “The Rhodes girls livin’ under one roof; we’d have a fucking blast.”

Toni’s almost tempted, then she sees the furious look on Rhodey’s face, practically turning his face purple, and decides _yeah, maybe not_.

* * *

The good news is, though, with pregnancy comes an unequivocal, undeniable desire to fuck Rhodey like a breeding horse, as vulgar as the image is. She doesn’t know what it is, if it’s the baby or something more, but it’s a passion that borders on madness, when she clambers on top of him in the middle of the night and shakes him awake.

Rhodey squints into the dark, before his eyes finally focus on her. “Huh? Wha’s-wha’s going on?” he slurs. He finds the slope of her hip, squeezing. “Is somethin’ wrong, baby girl?”

“I want sex,” she says, bluntly, flattening a palm over his beating heart.

Rhodey rubs the heels of his hands across his eyes. His eyes dart to the alarm clock on the bedside table. “Toni, it’s three in the morning,” he says, plaintively.

Toni shrugs, one shoulder of her shirt falling down to her elbow. “I can go now,” she says, cheerfully, rubbing up against him. She blinks. “Unless you’re too tired? I can use my vibrator.”

Rhodey sighs. “No, no, I can, uh, I can go for a round.”

“Great!” Toni says, cheerfully, and leans down to kiss him, hard and messy, until she feels something pulsing down low, hot and eager and greedy. “Mm,” she hums, her eyes lidded.

Rhodey surges up, hand threading through her unbound hair. “God, I love kissing you,” he mutters.

“You better,” she sighs. “I’m a fantastic kisser.”

Rhodey gives her a cross look. “I don’t want to be thinking about you kissing other people,” he says, sternly.

Toni rolls her eyes. “Jealous,” she says, fondly. “I love it.” She shakes out her limbs. “Fuck me, honeybear, before I get too huge to move around.”

Rhodey laughs, bright and proud, palm flattening over the swell of her belly. “You’re never gonna be too huge for me, baby girl.”

“Yeah?” Toni says, uncertainly, huddling closer, wondering if weight gain is every insecure hurdle a woman must pass.

Rhodey gives her a lazy smile. “You’re my lady, Stark.”

Toni flushes, tingling with warmth right down to her fingers and toes. She squirms in closer, draping her thin arms over his shoulder.

“You’re so good to me, honeybear,” she says, sweetly. She tosses her hair. “Now, fuck me.”

A chuckle rumbles to life and he topples them over, gently, surging on top of her, and she starts cackling, when he mouths at her throat.

* * *

Toni doesn’t see her parents for the duration of her pregnancy. Ana and Jarvis visit a couple of times, and Roberta and Jeanette visit plenty of times, but Howard and Maria never grace her doorstep, and frankly, Toni’s a little glad for that (she loves her mother, she does, but her mother is _much_ , and she can’t deal with _much_ right now, not with two humans growing in her stomach).

Nine months later, in the midst of screaming agony and Rhodey’s broken hand, Toni manages to shake two babies free of her womb and into a cradle.

Edward James Rhodes and Margaret Marianna Rhodes, and they’re the most beautiful things she’s ever seen, even with their scrunched-up red, teary faces and her tits that ache something fierce just because they’re alive.

After Toni (she gets first privileges by virtue of pushing two human beings out of her cunt), Rhodey holds them first, proud father that he is, and Jarvis takes them next, before passing them to Roberta, then Ana, and then Jeanette.

Toni’s content with her brave, gentle, strong husband and beautiful children, that grow up looking like the perfect blend of Rhodey and her. They have her dark hair and dark eyes, but Rhodey’s dark skin and his smile, and she loves them even more for it.

When they sit in her lap, playing with her hair, her earrings, while she tinkers with an old radio the lady across the road insisted that she fix, well, she’s never been more content.

* * *

The twins are four when Toni finally agrees to go and visit her parents, with Rhodey, mind you.

Howard offers to send the jet, the Stark Industries jet, for them, in a mindless grunt, the only offer he will ever extend to her.

Toni rejects it, of course.

She’s fine with flying economy – it had been an odd assimilation, but she had done it.

“Where are we goin’?” Maggie lisps, her voice like a bell, staring up at her with brown, brown eyes, the colour of a deer’s pelt.

Toni squeezes her hand. “We’re gonna visit your grandparents.”

Maggie’s brow screws up. “But I thought Grandpa Terrance was an angel,” she accuses, as if her mother would have lied to her.

“He is, honey; we’re gonna visit my parents.”

“Oh,” Maggie blinks up at her. “I didn’t know you had parents, mom.”

Toni laughs, even though the words sting. “I do, baby.”

Maggie licks her lips. “What’re their names?” she demands, all fire. “Will they buy me presents?”

“Maria and Howard,” Toni replies, easily. “And I think if you ask your grandma, I think she’ll buy you whatever you want.”

Maggie is her daughter, with all that hunger, so she’s already dwelling on the numerous things she might ask of her grandmother; Toni’s eyes slip to Ned, playing with his robot, the one she helped him make (this one, her boy has her mind).

“Ned, are you excited?” she asks.

Ned turns to her, and he looks so much like she did at his age, the disinterest, the lazy shrug of his shoulders, the way his fingers itched and went hot with the longing to reach for the robot again, the mess of his dark hair gleaming in the lamp.

Last night, she’d found him peeling apart his alarm clock to see how it worked.

“I guess,” he says, vaguely. He frowns to himself. “D’you think Grandpa will let me play in his workshop?”

 _No, no, he won’t_.

Toni ghosts a hand over his hair, soft as a raven’s feathers to the touch. “I don’t know, honey. I’ll ask him.”

 _He’ll say no, and he’ll be unkind about it, but I won’t ever let his hate touch you, Ned. You or your sister. I’d kill him first_.

* * *

At the very least, Maggie and Ned are thrilled to go on an actual plane, and if she didn’t have a death-grip on their hands, they’d have run from their house to the airport themselves.

When they finally climb into the aircraft, they find the entire plane empty.

Toni frowns. “Okay, this is the start to every horror movie, like ever,” she hisses at Rhodey. “There’s a serial killer in the bathroom, I just know it.”

Rhodey pats her hand. “Don’t be such a drama queen, babe.”

Toni scowls before turning to one of the air hostesses. “Is there any particular reason the plane is empty?”

The hostess blinks. “Your father booked out the entire plane, Ms Stark. He wanted you to have all the comfort you could.”

Toni shakes, from fingers down to toes. You’ve got to be kidding me.

“Toni,” Rhodey touches her arm. “Is everything okay?”

“He booked the whole plane,” she says, flatly.

“Mommy.” Ned looks up at her. “Is somethin’ w’ong?” (he still struggles with his ‘r’s).

She smooths back his hair.

“It’s nothing, sweet,” she murmurs. “Are you absolutely sure that it was my father?” she asks, carefully.

“Yes, Ms Stark. His instructions were very clear.”

She almost swears, but remembers the child holding onto her hand.

“Toni, it’s okay,” Rhodey cajoles. “We can have the whole plane to ourselves. The kids’ll love it.”

“You don’t get it.” Toni shakes her head, pale and taut. “This is what my dad does. I refuse to take the jet, so he books out all the other seats on the plane. It’s just another way to keep me under his thumb,” she mutters, bitterly. 

Rhodey squeezes her shoulder. “It’s gonna be fine, Toni.”

“Daddy,” Maggie tugs on his hand. “I want a drink. Can I get a drink?”

“Yeah, sure, baby girl,” Rhodey says, absentmindedly. His eyes widen. “No coke, no coke.”

Maggie’s face falters. “Please?” Her bright eyes are enormous.

Rhodey crumples like a stack of cards. “Oh, come on,” he mutters. “A little help over here.”

“God, no,” Toni rolls her eyes.

“No coke,” Rhodey insists.

Maggie looks at her instead.

“Come on, don’t give me that look. I invented that look,” Toni says, belligerently.

Maggie sighs, ever the affronted, put-upon little girl. “Fine,” she grumbles. “Orange juice, please, _with_ the pulp.” She even narrows her eyes.

“Your daughter,” Rhodey declares and lifts Maggie up into his arms, so he can carry her over to an empty seat.

Toni scoffs. She looks down at Ned. “Apple?” she guesses.

“Apple,” he says, solemn as the grave.

* * *

Stark Manor is as cold and imposing as always, even with her mother’s tiresome efforts. When Toni knocks on the door, it’s Jarvis who opens the door, with no Ana beside him, and she feels her heart clench at the reminder. In any case, she doesn’t hesitate to fling her arms around him.

“Miss Antonia,” Jarvis chuckles, his voice like the hot chocolate with chilli he used to make her in winter.

“Jarvis,” she says, brightly. “I’ve missed you.”

Jarvis releases her and his pale eyes find little Maggie and Ned. “Hello, young miss, young master.”

“Hi, Jarvis,” Maggie says, shyly, hiding behind Rhodey’s leg.

“Hi, Jarvis,” Ned echoes, a little brighter than his twin for a change (not for the first time, she sees her soul in Ned, four years in body and forty years in mind – she thought everyone was a monster in a fairy tale, except for Jarvis, at his age).

“Welcome to Stark Manor,” Jarvis declares, grandly. He offers a hand to Rhodey. “Master Rhodes.”

Rhodey flushes. “How many times have I told you, Jarvis? You can call me James, or Rhodey.”

Jarvis inclines his head. “Of course, Master Rhodes,” he says and leads them into the manor.

Toni nudges him. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, babe. I’ve been trying to get him to call me Toni since I was their age.” She ruffles Ned’s hair, making it stick it up like icicles, to which he complains vehemently.

“Are mom and dad home?” Toni asks Jarvis, curiously.

“Toni!”

Toni turns around to see her mother scampering down the stairs. Strange, she’d never seen her mother scamper before. Her hair was even loose from her trademark chignon, the colour of beaten silver where it had once been black as stone when Toni was a child.

“Mom,” she exclaims and huffs a little when her mother promptly throws her arms around her.

“Toni,” Maria sighs, contented. “Toni, oh, Toni, _mija_ , you’ve come home.”

Toni abruptly feels like crying, sobbing into her mother’s shoulder. “Hi, mom,” she says, thickly.

Maria sniffs, when she pulls away, her olive hands still gripping Toni’s arms.

“I’m glad you’re here, honey,” she says.

“So am I,” Toni lies. She offers her mother a strained, stricken smile.

Maria doesn’t seem to mind. She hikes up her long dress and crouches. “ _Mira vos_ , look at you two.” She touches Maggie’s and Ned’s hands. She looks up at Toni. “ _Mija_ , I always knew you’d make beautiful babies. Both of you,” she insists, beaming at Rhodey.

Something loosens in Toni’s chest – Maria, for all of her faults, has always loved Rhodey, almost as much as Toni does, for the love he bears her.

“Is dad here?” she asks, as much as she may not want to.

“I am.”

Toni swallows. She turns around and meets her father’s eyes. “Hi, dad.”

“Antonia,” Howard replies, voice thin and taut.

 _He’s gotten old_ , she thinks. Older than she ever thought he might have gotten.

“You finally decided to come and see us.”

_And there we go._

“Yeah, well, I was busy,” she smiles sharp and leonine. “being a parent; you know how it is, right, dad?”

Howard’s jaw turns to stone. His eyes dart to the side. “Colonel Rhodes,” he says, politely, but Toni and Rhodey both know he has plenty of contempt for Toni’s choice of husband, her choice of life (and surprisingly, not for racist reasons).

Rhodey inclines his head. “Mr Stark.”

Howard’s gaze flits down. “And these are…”

 _You don’t know your grandkids’ names?_ Toni should ask, but she keeps her tongue still.

Maggie steps forward, bravely, thrusting her hand out. “Margaret Marianna Rhodes,” she says, grandly.

Toni would laugh if she didn’t think Maggie would just scowl absolute murder up at her.

Howard even has a faint smile on his sunken face, a hint of that old-world charm that must have made her mother fall in love with him, that made Peggy stay around so long; she wondered if Steve Rogers knew _this_ Howard, and would he have been disappointed in the gargoyle left in place?

“It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Margaret,” he says. His eyes narrow as he turns to Ned. “And…?”

“Ned,” Ned replies from Toni’s hip, almost belligerently, cold and clean and clear.

She’s never heard her sweet boy talk like that, with so much viciousness, venom. Maggie has her temper; it comes quick and rushed and fades as quickly. But Ned’s rage is something else to bear; it’s strong and clean and demanding, and sometimes she fears for him, what he could be when he grows up, because it’s her rage that he has.

She wonders what her boy sees in Howard, in this moment, when she’d cut her own arm off before she’d tell anyone of Howard’s particular brand of bile and resentment, his blind, hungry cruelty.

Howard sees it, the picture he makes beside Toni, her image in thought and sentiment, and Toni sees the vat of wildfire in him brim over. He cages it enough, the thin fury, that he even seems welcoming when he tells them that he has to attend a meeting at Stark Industries but he looks forward to having dinner with all of them.

Maria, on the other hand, so used to her husband’s brand of misery, simply claps her hands.

“Now, _mi corazoncitos_ , I have some presents for you. Would you like to see them?” she cajoles, holding her hands out.

She’s gentler with her grandchildren than she’d ever been with her daughter, Toni thinks, ruefully.

Maggie takes her hand without much fanfare, but Ned is slower to move.

“What does that mean?” Ned asks, guilelessly. “ _Corazoncitos_ ,” he trips over the pronunciation but manages well for a four-year-old.

“Why, my little hearts, of course,” Maria says, cheerfully, pinching his cheek despite his disgruntled look.

Nonetheless, her twins follow her, the prospect of presents too great to resist.

“They look like ducklings,” Rhodey whispers in her ear, making Toni choke.

“What was that, Master Rhodes?” Jarvis asks, appearing out of the shadows.

Rhodey jumps. “Nothing, nothing, at all.”

Toni grins.

“Shall I take your bags, Miss Antonia? To your rooms?”

Toni eyes his thin arms, his salt-and-pepper hair. “Jarvis,” she begins.

“My dear girl,” he says, voice brooking no argument. “If you were to deny me the pleasure of carrying your bags to your rooms, well, there may be a slice of butterscotch pie missing from your plate come dinnertime.”

Toni abruptly shuts her mouth and looks down at her feet.

“Yes, that’s what I thought,” Jarvis says, satisfied, promptly picking up the bags at Toni and Rhodey’s feet.

Rhodey makes an aborted step, as if to help him, but Jarvis’ sharp look makes him still.

Jarvis simply smiles, like a kind old man, and throws the bags over his shoulder on his way up the stairs.

Rhodey reaches around her waist to grip the slope of her hip.

“Are you _absolutely_ sure that he wasn’t an assassin before he came to work for your family?” he insists.

Toni sighs. “No, that was Ana. I’ve told you that before.”

* * *

“I don’t like it,” Ned declares, tugging on the end of his little bowtie.

Toni sighs and kneels. “Honey-”

“We _never_ have to wear ties and suits to dinner back home,” he argues.

“Yes, you’re right,” Toni agrees. “But this is a little more formal than dinner back home.”

Ned’s face screws up. “Why?” he asks, disgusted.

_Because your grandfather is an obnoxious prick._

“Because, _mijo_ , it will make your grandmother happy.” She hates the emotional blackmail she’s about divulge to her son. “Don’t you want to make your grandmother happy?”

_HaShem, forgive me._

“Well, yeah,” he says, grudgingly.

“That’s my boy,” she says, fond, smoothing back his dark hair. “Now, come on, let’s see the endings to the war between your dad and your sister.”

“Do you think there’s blood?” Ned asks, in a low, hushed voice.

“Maybe your dad’s,” Toni mutters.

* * *

Maggie is pleased as punch when she saunters out of her bedroom, in her white-red dress, the colour of a sycamore tree in autumn.

“Do you like the dress, baby?” she asks.

Maggie does a little twirl. “I do,” she says, happily. She touches the black lace of Toni’s dress. “Wow, mommy, you look so pretty.”

“Thank you, baby. You look beyond beautiful, doesn’t she, Rhodey?”

Rhodey comes in after Maggie, tugging at his own tie, an equally disgruntled expression on his face, the mirror of Ned’s, that makes Toni laugh.

“Yeah, baby girl, you look beautiful,” Rhodey says, gently, which gets Maggie beaming up at him.

“Now, come, Jarvis is the best cook I know. I’m sure he’s made something special for you two.”

Maggie gives her a limpid, teasing look. “Don’t let gramma here you say that.”

“Yeah, my mother might nail you to the wall,” Rhodey mutters in her ear, his hand on her hip.

“Great, can she do it before dinner?”

* * *

“This is a great spread, Jarvis,” Rhodey says, gently. “Thank you so much.”

Jarvis beams down at him. “You’re very welcome, Master Rhodes.”

“Why don’t you join us?” Toni asks, suddenly.

“Toni,” Howard sighs.

“Jarvis is as much my family as anyone else on this table,” she retorts, sharply.

Howard glowers at her, but anything he might have said years ago to her, anything he might have done, is immediately quelled by Rhodey subtly taking a hold of his wine glass, drawing attention to himself, his presence beside her.

Toni hates that, his venom, his hate, his anger, his violence only being silenced because there’s a man beside her, capable of protecting his poor, abused wife.

Never more than in this moment has she ever wanted to throw her wine in his face.

“Fine,” Howard grunts. He gifts Jarvis with a halfway pleasant smile. “Join us, Jarvis.”

Jarvis looks like he’s about to refuse the invitation, but when he catches a sight of Toni’s measured look, a smile takes form on his face and slips into an empty seat opposite little Maggie and Ned, who are simply starstruck by her elderly butler.

“So, dad, how’s Stark Industries going?” Toni asks, cutting a piece off her chicken off the plate.

“It’s going,” Howard says, his voice terse.

“I saw something on the news about that Tellor Propellant Rifle failing,” she says, sweetly. “That was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”

Howard grinds his teeth. “We’ll be able to fix it.”

Toni grins, sharp and almost leonine. “Will you?”

Rhodey grips her thigh under the tablecloth.

She knows, she knows she’s baiting him, but she’s earned this, hasn’t she? She’d left this house of horrors when she was fourteen and never returned to stay, never allowed herself to treat Howard the way he treated her. And today, she sits at his table, a grown woman with a husband and two children and a life and livelihood that belongs to her and her alone.

Isn’t she fucking owed this?

“You getting at something?” Howard lifts an eyebrow.

“ _Mija_ ,” Maria warns, softly.

“Oh, not really, I just thought it was a big enough failure from what I saw on the news. They jammed, didn’t they?”

Howard glowers at her. “You’ve got some nerve,” he hisses.

Toni grins. “Do I?”

“Enough, both of you!” Maria snaps. “We’re supposed to be having a pleasant family dinner.”

“Family,” Toni snorts and shakes her head.

“Miss Antonia,” Jarvis cautions, hand gripping hers.

“No, no, Jarvis, let her talk,” Howard sneers. “You can’t keep protecting her for the rest of your life.”

Toni shakes her head. “At least someone was,” she mutters.

“What was that?” Howard demands.

“I _said_ ,” Toni gives him a hateful, venomous look. “At least someone was.”

“Oh, because your life was so sad?” Howard says, viciously. “Because the little princess didn’t get all the love she so desperately wanted? Because you were so unfulfilled? You always were a greedy child, Toni, and now you’re just a sad, sour woman.”

Toni shakes from head to foot, angry to her fingers and to her toes. “Maybe because I had a father who decided to routinely abandon his wife and kid to go a search for a corpse in the Arctic. Maybe because I had a father who couldn’t deal with the fact that his four-year-old daughter was smarter than him and will _always_ be smarter than him. Maybe because all I’ve ever known from my father is how absurdly pathetic and resentful he is, because at heart, he’s just a weak little man who can’t deal with his own failures in life, so he took it out on his kid.”

Howard gives a look full of fury. “You haven’t grown up at all. You’re still the same ungrateful, stubborn little brat you’ve always been. God, I feel for those two,” he mutters, eyeing Ned and Maggie.

Toni’s hands clench deep around the edge of the table. _I will burn you to the ground if you talk about my babies again_ , she decides.

“We should stop this conversation. _Stop_ , Howard,” Maria says, coldly.

Howard’s look at his wife is thin and wrathful. “You can’t be damn Switzerland in every conversation, Maria,” he spits.

“Hey, don’t talk to her like that,” Toni snaps, almost lunging to her feet. “You problem is with me, leave her out of it.”

“You have some goddamn nerve talking to me about treating your mother kindly, when you’re the one who’s broken her heart these last couple of years by not coming home!” Howard shouts, his face going purple.

“I didn’t come home because I didn’t want to see you!” Toni shouts back. “I don’t have a problem with her, I have a problem with _you_!”

Howard’s face twists, and he lunges across the table for her, hand clenching and unclenching around air like he’d wring her throat. “You selfish little b-”

Just as he reaches for her, she shoves him back into his chair.

She’s not the frightened little girl he could bully into submission anymore, and like hell, _like fucking hell_ , she’s going to cower in front of him.

“Hey!” Rhodey interjects, shaking half-sick with rage. “Don’t you _dare_ touch her,” he threatens, cold and empty and flat.

Even Jarvis, pleasant, kind Jarvis, is scowling absolute murder at her father. “Mr Stark, I think that’s enough.” He has his hands on Ned and Maggie’s shoulders, who are shaking, huddled close to them. “Perhaps it would be better if you ate the rest of your dinner in your study, sir,” he says, patiently.

“This is my home,” Howard begins to argue.

“Go, sir,” Jarvis says, quietly, looking at Howard with such rage that Toni didn’t think him capable of. “I won’t ask twice.”

“I won’t let you just-”

“Maybe,” Maria begins, blankly staring at her empty wine glass. “You’ve had too much to drink, _viejo_ ,” she threatens.

He gives Maria such an unambiguous look of loathing, but she simply gives him a measured look, quelling him. Finally, Howard gives a final glower to all of them seated at the table, storming off, plate in his hands.

“Finally,” Toni mutters.

“ _Pelotudo_ ,” Maria mutters under her breath and Toni laughs.

But then, her face crumples, when she sees the pallid look on Maggie and Ned’s faces, eyes wet and shining. She reaches for them and they go so willing into her arms.

“Why is Grandpa so mean?” Maggie murmurs against her neck.

A shadow crosses Toni’s face. _How do I explain child abuse to you, baby girl?_ She wonders.

Thankfully, Jarvis is there.

“Mr Stark is unfortunately not a very nice man, little miss,” he answers, voice cast low. “And he is not very nice to little girls in particular.”

Ned rounds on him. “But _why_?” he demands.

Toni presses her mouth to his dark curls. He might need a haircut soon, but she’d hate taking scissors to his beautiful hair.

“Your Grandpa and I don’t get along, honey,” she explains, ruefully. “We didn’t get along when I was your age, and we won’t get along now.”

Ned’s little hand wraps around her wrist. “I want to go home now, mommy,” he insists.

Toni exchanges a look with Rhodey, who’s still shaking. She bites her lip. “Maybe we should cut this trip short?” she offers.

Maria scowls. “No,” she says, sternly. “You won’t leave so quickly, _mija_. He’ll go,” she says, confidently. “I’ll make him.”

Toni raises an eyebrow. “I look forward to seeing that.”

* * *

“Am I an awful mother?” Toni whispers against Rhodey’s shoulder.

Rhodey snorts. “Of course not.”

“I wanted to get one up on him,” she says, sourly. “After all these years, I wanted to show him that I was just as big and strong as he is and he couldn’t bully me anymore, but I exposed my kids to that-that miserable bastard.”

“Well, you were taunting him a bit,” Rhodey acknowledges.

“See!” Toni says, lifting herself up. “See, I told you, awful mother.”

Rhodey laughs and reaches for her. “You’re not an awful mother. Toni, God, you love your kids more than anything. You’d fight off the damn Devil for them. Could you have done things better tonight? Yeah, maybe. Could you have maybe waited to hash out shit with your dad until after the kids went to bed? Probably. But the guy’s an abusive asshole and deserved everything he got. We’ll talk to the kids, explain everything.”

Toni sighs. “Why are you so good to me?”

Rhodey shrugs. “‘Cause divorce is going to be bitch, no offence.”

“Rude,” she declares and kisses him on the mouth.

“Hardly, you love me.” Rhodey pulls her in. “The darker the chocolate, the richer the taste,” he murmurs against her mouth.

She pulls away with a gasp. “I think that’s racist.”

He laughs and kisses her again.

He topples her onto her back and rubs up against her and she sighs, thinking this might make everything better, him inside her, when the door creaks open and they’re forced to part. Ned comes in quietly, Maggie clutching at his hand, and they toddle over to the side of the bed.

“What’s up, munchkins?” Toni asks, quietly.

“Maggie had a nightmare,” Ned declares.

Maggie makes a horrified, comical gasp. “I did not, you liar,” she hisses. “He’s lying, mama. He had the nightmare, but he made me come with him.” She says, earnestly.

Toni’s lips quirk up in a half-smile and she reaches for the twins, so they can clamber up onto the bed and into her lap, dragging the air out of her lungs.

“Well, I suppose if you’ve had a nightmare,” Toni sighs, rubbing her cold nose against their warm skin, making them giggle like bells.

Maggie reaches for Rhodey, curling up against his side, a veritable daddy’s girl, while Ned huddles in her lap. She smooths a hand over his hair.

They both had the nightmare, she knows, and she also knows what would have caused it.

“My dad, your grandpa,” she begins. “He and I don’t like each other very much. He was, well, he was very mean to me when I was a kid, and I have been very angry at him for a long time. But I shouldn’t have fought with him, not when you were there. I never want you to be scared, either of you, especially not when I’m there, when your dad’s there.”

Maggie turns to her with big eyes. “Are you gonna say sorry, mommy?” she asks. “You always say if Neddy and I get into a fight, we’re s’pposed to say sorry and hug it out.”

_Fuck no._

Toni offers her a strained smile. “We’ll see in the morning, baby.”

“I don’t think you should,” Ned grumbles. “He’s mean.”

“I don’t either,” Maggie chimes in. “He made you sad and angry.” Her face twists into absolute murder.

“You don’t have to like him,” Toni says, cautiously. “And I won’t ever let him scare you again.”

Ned nods against her stomach, and Maggie presses her little heels into her side. Rhodey turns onto his stomach and throws a long, sinewy arm over the three of them, dark, heavy eyes finding hers, and she feels safe.

_And when you’re older, much older, I’ll tell you a story, about me, about Howard, and you’ll understand everything._

* * *

The next morning, Rhodey carries Ned and Maggie into the dining hall for breakfast, with Toni bringing up the rear, only to find Jarvis and Maria talking quietly amongst themselves at the table, with Howard not in sight.

When Toni asks Maria, she simply smiles, staring at her daughter through her eyelashes.

“He was called away on work,” she explains, smoothly. “Some unavoidable meeting in Chicago. He’s so busy nowadays, _mija_.”

Toni stares at her mother, this woman who seems like home, yet a stranger at the same time and thinks, _this is a woman I’d like to know._

She smiles a little, ducking her head to look at her lap. She lifts her eyes, meeting Jarvis’ kind ones. Something unfists between her ribs.

But Jarvis, Jarvis will always be her favourite.

“It’s a great spread, J,” she says, sweetly. “What d’you say, kids?”

Ned and Maggie look up from their plates, syrup gleaming on their chins. They grin at him, with gaps in their teeth and their fat little cheeks, and Toni’s heart swells right into her throat.

“Thank you, Jarbis!” 


End file.
